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By Richard S. Rajapaksa
There are instances when murder is legal.
There are instances when not only it is legal but also profitable and survives as profession, where the killers work from plush offices, use luxury cars and get big bonuses. They dine in style and holiday in exotic locations. No, it is not the mafia or any other international cartel.
It is the multinational tobacco trade.
With reference and given the fact to the statistical proof of the number of deaths caused every year it is undoubtedly the most cold-blooded and ruthless industry in existence. This is the only trade where the customer dies when the product is used according to the intention and the instructions of the manufacturer. Is it any different from the arms trade? Yes, it is. The products of the arms trade are used by its clients to harm the enemy or those loyal to the enemy. Tobacco kills its own loyal customer. And this happens in a day and age when the market or the consumer is united under the often cliched slogan the ‘customer is king’.
A product that has no known safe level of use and kills half of its users. A product that is addictive. A product that has been marketed to children over many years. A product that even kills men, women and children unfortunate enough to be exposed to its toxic fumes. A product that has over 4000 toxic substances that include over 70 cancer causing chemicals and many more poisons. Arsenic, cadmium, polonium 210, formaldehyde, chromium and benzene are some of these components, which we have heard of in other contexts, all cause cancer in humans. Ever heard of Acrolein? It was formerly used in chemical weapons. Hydrogen cyanide? Yes. Ammonia? Yes. Nitrosamines? Yes. There are all there.
It is also a unique industry as it has to snare new customers each day, to replace customers who die as a result of using its products. This industry is rich enough to hire the brightest and the most talented graduates from various disciplines in most parts of the world. And those from prominent, aristocratic families with access. How such intelligent beings are made to gradually cross over to the dark side should be an interesting study for those interested in human nature. Prolonged exposure to view points, however repulsive, can change even the brightest minds. History is replete with such examples.
Will such a product be allowed to be marketed if invented today? Most unlikely, by any stretch of imagination. So how does this industry survive and prosper in this age of transparency, democracy, human rights, high brow philosophy and sophisticated economics? Especially in an age where there are “international” calls for “credible” investigations even for imagined murder?
Basically, it is a beast that moulds the environment to suit its needs. Over the last century this creature has succeeded in creating an environment that helps it to feed itself. This industry beast has many parallels with its basic raw material, the tobacco leaf. It sucks the nutrition out of the soil which nurtures it and makes it infertile within a very short period of time. It also harms the very people, the tobacco farmers, that nurture it and provide it sustenance. Green Tobacco sickness is the reward the tobacco leaf gives the farmers.
In most countries of the world, the four pillars of democracy has been used insidiously and incessantly over decades for this purpose. In addition to devouring its own customers it also nibbles the four pillars continuously to suit its needs. The four pillars may not feel the nibbles. But, over decades, its shape and functions have changed to suit the continued murder of the hapless victims by this trade.
The dark world of this beast was partially illuminated during a court process in the United States of America during the 1990’s. In 1998, The Master Settlement reached by 46 States of the United States of America and the five largest tobacco companies in that country. Among the conditions of the settlement was to make internal documents of these five companies public. These documents are now stored in depositories in the US and UK and can be accessed through the internet. These previously secret documents give us an insight to how the beast thought, worked, snared victims and sustained itself.
" How does it thrive? Who or what supports its existence? Money and contacts. Lobbyists and lawyers. Politics and bureaucracy. Inducements and propaganda. " |